Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 00:51:39 CDT
From: Randy O'Brien
Subject: Ice_Storm_Chapter_9
Legal Notice:
The following story contains descriptions of graphic sexual acts.
The story is a work of fiction and has no basis in reality.
Don't read this story if:
**You're not 18 or over,
**If it is illegal to read this type of material where you live,
**Or if you don't want to read about gay/bi people in love or having sex.
The author retains copyright to this story. Placing this story on a
website or reproducing this story for distribution without the author's
permission is a violation of that copyright. Legal action will be taken
against violators.
Ice Storm
Chapter 9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"W-w-what do you wanna talk to us about?" Blake stammered.
"Oh, just a couple of rules of the house. Nothing serious."
"We haven't made your dad mad, have we?" Trent said.
"Oh, no. Dad just reminded me that you probably weren't used to the way we
do things around here, and wanted me to let you in on a couple of things," I
said, trying to put them at ease. "First, as long as you are here, you will
have complete privacy, anytime you want it. All you have to do is lock your
door, and the door to the bathroom, and you will not be disturbed. Second,
we are all guys here, and you don't have to be shy about running around with
little or no clothes on. I don't know how Russ' dad will feel about it, but
it doesn't bother dad at all, and I think you have figured out that it
doesn't bother me, and that's how I usually walk around, at least down here
in the basement. Don't be surprised to see dad walking around in the nude
or in his underwear, assuming that Russ' dad is not around. I think he
would be polite enough to put something on if he were likely to see him, and
I would recommend the same for you. As for dad, he prefers to be called
Chuck, and not Mr. Hampton. We are all pretty laid back around here. There
isn't anywhere in the house that you can't go, with the exception of Mr.
Jenkins's room. We want him to feel as safe and secure as we do you, and it
wouldn't be polite to be walking in his bedroom, but other than that, you
pretty much have free run of the house. I don't know what kinds of things
you guys are into. There are computers in every room of the house,
including your bedroom, and we have a dedicated line to the Internet, so if
you like to surf the web, or chat on IRC or whatever, feel free to do so."
"Wow, that's cool. We both like to chat on IRC, but we don't get a chance
to very often. Mom is pretty strict about what channels we are supposed to
be in, and if she found out that we were in any of the gay rooms, she would
have a fit," Trent said.
"Well, you won't be taking up enough bandwidth to make it noticeable. Dad
has a T-3 line which is probably the fastest in this end of the state,
except for BellSouth and MCI. We are connected directly to MCI's backbone,
so all of the news groups are available if you are into that. If you have
any questions, just ask dad, or me and we will show you how everything
works. If you do want to play on Internet, let me know, and I will set up
logon accounts for you on the network, so you will each have your own
account. All of the computers in the house are networked together, so you
can access from any of them. There are some laptops upstairs, and I will
get one of them for you and one for Russ, so we can even all be online at
the same time. That's about it, except for the movies. We have a ton of
movies upstairs, and you are welcome to watch any of them you want, either
in your room, or you can come in and watch them with Russ and me. Or if you
want, there is a full home theater up stairs, and if you aren't sure how to
use some of it, again, just ask me or dad. It's pretty self explanatory,
and all you have to do is press a couple of buttons, and stick the tape in
the VCR, and it will be ready to go. It will automatically, turn the lights
down, and lower the screen, and you will be set. The cable is out, but we
have both DSS digital satellite, as well as four regular satellite dishes,
so I don't think there will be any shortage of things to watch," I
explained. "And don't be afraid to ask dad or me how to operate something.
We don't bite, well he doesn't, and I don't unless you want me to," I said
laughing. That relaxed them. "Any questions?"
"Not that I can think of, what about you Blake?" Trent said.
"Nope, I think I understand."
"How about you, Russ?"
"I think I got it all, but I imagine I will be with you most of the time."
"Oh, one other thing. The adult movies, and dad has quite a few of those as
well, are in a box in his closet. I will get the box and bring it down here,
so you don't have to go asking him where they are, if I happen to be doing
something, and you can't find me. I will put them in my room, and you can
feel free to get any of them that you want. And dad doesn't know that you
are gay, but he knows I am, and," turning to Russ, "I think he suspects that
you are, since you are staying with me, instead of in your own room, but he
doesn't care. And he doesn't care if the two of you are, either. If you
want them, there are condoms in the bathroom, and you can just help
yourself. They are in one of the drawers by the sink. I don't remember
which one, but just look around until you find them. I don't have any
secrets from you guys. If you feel sick, let dad know, he's not a doctor,
but he has had quite a bit of medical training, he is a paramedic, and a
registered nurse, so unless it is something pretty bad, he will probably be
able to help you there. Other than that, just make yourselves at home, or
since you told me that you didn't have much privacy at home, you can be even
more relaxed here. And don't hesitate to ask me or dad anything. If you
aren't comfortable with asking him something, don't hesitate to ask me, and
vice-versa. You are both great guys, and you are welcome to stay as long as
you like. You don't have to rush home, just because they get the roads
cleared. Especially not until after they get the power on at your house," I
said. "Just relax and have a good time. Don't worry about anything, dad
and I can handle the few things that have to be done around here. You are
our guests, and we will treat you as such."
"Thanks again for everything, Randy, and don't forget to pass our thanks on
to your dad," Trent said. "And thanks for offering us privacy too. Like I
said, that isn't something that we get much of at home. I'll be 18 in just
a couple of weeks, and be getting an apartment, and I imagine that Blake
will be spending a lot of time at my apartment with me, so we will finally
have some privacy there. But as for while we are here, especially after
last night, we don't have anything to hide from you or Russ, although it
would be somewhat embarrassing for your dad to walk in on us while we were
making love, we certainly don't mind you or Russ."
"Well, then my best advice would be to close and lock the door from your
room out into the hall, and you can leave the door from the bathroom open.
Ours will be open. About the only time you might see my door closed, and
then it won't be locked, would be if dad came down here and was in my room.
And that would just be to give you privacy from him, not to keep you out.
If dad has something that he wants privacy about, he will call me up to the
office, and talk to me there," I said. "And you are welcome to not even use
the door to your room if you don't want to, and just come and go through our
room. Like I said, Russ and I have nothing to hide from either of you.
Whatever you want to do is fine with us, and if you happen to come in while
we are making love, feel free to join us if you want. We both think you are
very attractive, and would welcome you in our bed anytime, right handsome?"
I said, looking at Russ, who just smiled and nodded his head, glancing over
at Blake.
"OK, first things first, since you said you both like to play on the
Internet, let's get you accounts set up on the house system," I said,
getting up and walking toward my computer. Everyone followed me, and I hit
the power button, and let the system start booting, while everyone else
pulled up chairs to watch. I grabbed a notepad and a pen off of the desk,
and turned in my chair to face everyone. "If you will be so kind as to
write down a username and password that you want to use, I will get the
accounts created, then I will go upstairs and grab some laptops and network
cables so everybody can have their own computers. When you get your user id
and password written down, just tear the page off and hand it to me. That
way, everybody's passwords are secret. You can use whatever you want for a
user id, as long as it doesn't contain spaces, but I recommend some
variation on your names, so we will all remember who is who. My user id is
RandyH, and if you want to send me e-mail, that is the address to send it
to. Unless you are sending something to someone outside the system, all you
need is a user id, not a full e-mail address. Before you leave, I will give
you my e-mail address too, so we can still talk after you leave," I said as
Trent handed me the page with his user id and password on it. "Good choice
of name Trent. I'll create your account first," I said, logging in as
system administrator, so I could create the accounts. By the time I had
Trent's account created, Blake and Russ had their page's with user id and
password ready. After I had everybody's accounts set up, I showed them the
basics of using our system. "It's pretty much like any other computer you
may have worked on, except that ours have a few little options that many
don't have. Most of those are just little programs that dad has written,
but there are a few that you might be interested in. You will automatically
be told of any e-mail that you have when you log on, the computers are all
setup to log on to the network as soon as you log in, so you will always
know immediately when you have e-mail waiting. Also, dad has a big stereo
system set up that is attached to one of the servers, and you can control
music in the room you are in, just by choosing the music you want to hear.
He doesn't have a great selection of music, most of it is either classical
or jazz. You can also choose to listen to the radio, not that there is much
choice around here in radio stations, but it also has all of the satellite
music channels, including MTV, VH1, and CMT. When you get into that
program, I think you will pretty much be able to find your way around. If
you have any problems, and dad or I aren't around to help, you can always
hit F1 for help, and it is all context sensitive. We will go into more
detail later, if you have any questions, just ask," I said, as I got the
last of the accounts created and logged out as system administrator, and
logged back on as myself. "Your e-mail is completely private, we don't read
it or anything like that, but it will stay on the system for 30 days unless
you specifically delete it. Don't worry about deleting it unless you just
want to, it remains on the big system upstairs, and there is no shortage of
hard drive space on that system. It is a quad-processor 700MHz Pentium III
Zeon, with 4Gig of memory, and 800 gig of hard drive space, so unless you
receive a bunch of e-mail with very large attachments, you won't be
cluttering up the system, and it is on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week. And let's not forget that there are a ton of games that can be
accessed from it, including network games that can be played head to head,
between any of the computers in the house. Dad is a game nut, so if you are
playing a game, it will show up on his system monitor, don't be surprised if
he breaks in and offers to play head to head. Only one warning about that,
he is good. There are 64 CD's online, so just about anything that you might
think of is probably on one of the CD's, if not, let me know, and we
probably have it, just not online. We are running Windows2000, not 98, so
it may look or act a little bit different than you are used to, but
everything still works the same way. Any questions or comments?" I asked,
feeling like a teacher.
"Yeah, where is the computer in our room, I don't remember seeing it," Blake
asked.
"Well, if you will follow me, I will show you," I said, standing up, and
heading toward the bathroom to get into their room.
As we all got into their room, I walked around to the end of the dresser,
and hit the little button on the wall, and a section of the wall opened,
revealing a computer system, complete with printer. "There ya go. We
didn't put it back there to hide it, just to keep it out of the way. Some
people aren't comfortable with computers, and we didn't want anyone who was
staying in here that didn't like computers, to have to have it in their way.
Most of the rooms have a small closet like this one, that has a computer
in it. And all of the rooms have at least two network connections. This
one is already hooked up to the network, and the other one will plug in
right there," I said, pointing to what looked like a big telephone jack.
There is also a telephone in each room. If you want to call anyone, just
pick it up and dial. It will automatically find an open line, unless there
isn't one, but you won't pick up on anyone else's conversation. And nobody
can pick up on your conversation either, unless you specifically include
them in it by conferencing them into it," I said, hoping that they knew that
they had all the privacy that we could grant them. "That's about it," I
said, getting ready to go upstairs and get two of the laptops so Russ and
Blake would have their own computers. "If a couple of you would be so kind
as to come with me, we will get a couple of laptops, and get them hooked
into the network, so everybody will have their own computer, and then you
two can get your shower. Since Mr. Jenkins may be upstairs, I guess we
should put on at least some clothes," I said. I'm just gonna put on shorts
and a T-shirt, the house is warm, and there isn't much reason to get all
dressed, unless you are going outside. I'm sure I can find some shorts that
will fit you, or at least come close enough, that they won't either fall
off, or cut you in half, and I have a ton of T-shirts. Unless you just
particularly want to put those sweats back on, you can follow me, and we can
all get dressed in our room," I said, heading back for the room I shared
with Russ.
I had grabbed some of dads shorts, just for this, and had them laying in my
room, and tossed them to the two older guys, and Russ was already digging in
his bag, looking for the shorts he had stuck in there at my suggestion.
Just grab a T-shirt out of the closet, they should all fit everybody, the
may be a bit baggy on some of you, or a bit tight on others, but they will
fit well enough."
As we got to the top of the stairs, I turned and headed toward the computer
room. As we entered, it was a bit cramped with all of us in there with all
of the other equipment, but everyone crowded in, and I headed to the closet,
to grab some equipment. I grabbed a couple of network cables, mice, and
keyboards, and handed them to Russ, and grabbed two of the laptops off the
shelf, and grabbed power supplies for them. Blake took these, and lastly I
motioned Trent to come in there, and I picked up a monitor and handed it to
him, and picked up a second one for myself. "These are a bit big for the
dumb waiters, and a bit heavy, so we will have to carry them down
ourselves," I said, heading back out toward the hall to go back downstairs.
"Close the door behind you, if you would Russ, I said, noting that he would
be the last one out of the room. As we got back down to my room, we all set
our loads down on my dresser.
"I'll be right back, I forgot one thing," I said, heading back upstairs. As
I returned with docking stations for the two laptops, I set one down on the
desk next to my computer, and moved one of the monitors next to it. Hooking
up the monitor, mouse, and keyboard to the docking station, I plugged the
laptop into it, and connected it all to the network, so it would be online.
I proceeded to boot it up, and when it was sitting at the login prompt, I
turned and suggested that we get the other one hooked up, "Let's get the
other one hooked up, and you guys can start to play." After getting the
second laptop set up in their room, I told Blake that if he wanted to print
anything from the laptop, he could just print it to the printer in my room,
and help himself to it, once it was printed.
"Everybody understand everything?" I asked.
"I think so," Blake replied.
"Got it," Trent said.
"Yep," Russ agreed.
"OK, well, feel free to do whatever you want to do, if you wanna come back
in our room, you are welcome to, or if you wanna relax in here, or play on
the computers, or whatever. I have some e-mail waiting that I need to read,
so I'm gonna go do that, but you guys are welcome to do whatever you want,"
I said, getting up and heading back to my room.
* * * * * *
When I had finished reading and replying to my e-mail, Russ sat down next to
me, and we started talking. "Can I ask you something Randy?"
"Sure, I told you, you can ask me anything you want, and I will answer the
best I can. And if it is something that I don't know the answer to, I will
do my best to find out for you."
"Well, I don't mean to be nosy, but you and your dad seem to have a very
nice home here, and from what I have seen, it looks like it would be very
expensive for all of the things that you have in here. All of the
computers, and all of that stuff."
"Oh, well, dad was injured a few years ago, when he was working as a
paramedic, and he had a pretty big insurance payoff. He spent about 5 years
investing it heavily, and turned it into about 10 times what it had been
worth. And he does a lot of consulting on computer stuff. He spends a lot
of time at his computer, so he has one of the best ones on the market. He
and I built all of the computers in the house except the laptops, and he
always has to keep two or three laptops that are the latest models for when
he has to go out on a consulting job. Fortunately, he does most of his work
from here, except for the work at the plant, and that is just to keep him
busy, and he only works there part time. Most of his time is spent
consulting with and setting up Internet providers, and bigger systems and
networks. He is a certified system engineer, and makes about $500,000.00 a
year consulting, and if he spends much time onsite, he makes even more. And
he also does some programming. He has had a few programs that sold pretty
well, and he gets royalties from that. He doesn't sell some of his
programs, just writes them for use around here, and for his use in his
consulting business. Actually, he wrote a program that is what is called a
packet sniffer, and if he wanted to, he could read anything that he could
get access to, on the Internet. But he doesn't do that; it is just for
work. He knows how much people value their privacy and he wouldn't take
advantage of his skill to invade that privacy, especially guests in his
house. And he is working on a new program, he doesn't know how it will turn
out yet, it is his first try at programming a game, and he is still a long
way from having it finished. If he starts working on it this week, I will
see about getting it on the network where we can access it. He was working
on the network code for it last time he told me anything, but I don't know
if he has it ready to play yet or not."
"I wasn't trying to be nosy or anything, I was just curious. You seemed to
have just about everything here, and I knew your dad had to make a lot of
money to have all of this stuff."
"Naahh, you weren't nosy, just curious, and like I said, I don't have any
secrets from you."
"Well, dad doesn't make much money, he just works on the assembly line at
Emerson, so our house isn't as nice as yours, and we don't have all of the
fun toys that you have," Russ said, hanging his head down.
"Hey, dad has had a lot of lucky breaks, and if he hadn't, we wouldn't have
near as much as we do. I didn't mean to sound like I was bragging, but I'm
proud of dad. But you should be proud of your dad too. He works hard to
provide you for you, and he does a good job. My dad just happens to have a
knack for computers, and he makes good money at it," I said, trying not to
make him feel bad because we were better off than he was.
"There's something else that I should tell you too," I said, hoping that it
would make him more comfortable. "Dad is gay too. That's why he didn't
give me a hard way to go when I told him I was. And he will support you, if
you decide to tell your dad. I don't know how your dad will feel, but if he
starts giving you any problems, you will always be welcome here."
"Thanks. I don't know how dad will react if and when I tell him I am gay,
but as long as I have you and your dad to help me, I know I will be able to
face him."
"You have mail waiting," the computer said.
"Oh, great. More e-mail," I said, smiling at Russ, and clicking on the mail
icon. "It's from dad, he has this weird thing about e-mailing me. Just too
lazy to yell down the stairs at me, I guess," I commented dryly. "He wants
to talk to me about something "when you aren't busy". Well, I guess now is
as good a time as any, I'll be back in a few minutes," I said, getting up to
head upstairs and see what dad wanted to talk to me about that was so
important that it couldn't wait until dinner.
"OK, I'll be here waiting for you when you get back."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Be Continued
This is a story that I started a little over 4 years ago, I've got several
chapters already written, and will be happy to post them, if it appears
that some of you are enjoying the series. Let me know what you think.
Please send comments or constructive criticizm to therandyone@hotmail.com
As always, flames will be ignored.
I wish to express much thanks to Jarrett and Trey for their help in editing
and getting this posted. Without their help, the posting of the story would
be going much slower. I can't believe the number of responses that I have
received about Ice Storm so far. The response has been overwhelming.
Please continue to write, and let me know what you think. Your feedback is
what makes posting this and other stories worthwhile. While replies may be
slow, I will promise that I will do my best to reply to each and every one
who writes. Keep those e-mails coming.